If you like Martin Lawrence -- really really really like Martin
Lawrence, about as much as, say, his mother likes him -- you will enjoy
A THIN LINE BETWEEN LOVE AND HATE a heck of a lot more than the rest of
us. This is Martin Lawrence's ego trip movie. He stars in it. He
directed it. He wrote the story. He co-wrote the screenplay. He was the
music supervisor. Under a pseudonym, he apparently did some stunts.
He's one of the executive producers. He was a busy man with a lot of
responsibilities, few of which he seems to have filled very well. A
THIN LINE is to Martin Lawrence what HARLEM NIGHTS was to Eddie Murphy:
a vanity project wrecked on the rocks of arrogance.

The plot is a mix of SUNSET BLVD. (it even opens with and is narrated
by a man face down in a swimming pool) and FATAL ATTRACTION; there's
even a dialog reference to the latter, as if by pointing out within the
movie that the plot is a ripoff, permission is gained to be a ripoff.
Unfortunately, the movie is also a comedy.

The success of the film doesn't just depend heavily on the audience's
fondness for Lawrence, the affection is crucial. But Lawrence doesn't
do anything on screen to gain our affection. Producer George Jackson's
warm, ingratiating commentary even says that this love is essential --
but Lawrence, talented comic actor though he is, lacks warmth and is
short on charisma.

He plays Darnell Wright, a junior partner in Chocolate City, a popular
jazz/rap nightclub owned by Smitty (Roger E. Mosley). Darnell is
absolutely, serenely certain he's catnip for women, irresistible,
devastatingly sexy, and utterly desirable. And he is. There's an
embarrassing montage at the beginning showing Darnell cutting a swath
across black Los Angeles, with every woman he meets insane with desire
to crawl into bed with him. We're supposed to find him charming despite
his brassy approach, but he's not; after a while, he comes across as
repellent, not attractive.

His mother (Della Reese, good as always) warns him that there is a thin
line between love and hate (someone had to say the title), and that
he's running a major risk. But Darnell doesn't give a damn; he knows
he'll always win out in the end. We're supposed to find it an
indication of a kind of essential innocence that he's never been to bed
with Mia (Regina King), a long-time friend who's now (in an odd but
interesting touch) in the Air Force. Of course, this also makes it
absolutely certain that they will get together before the end of the
movie.

Darnell is surprised when he encounters cool, elegant Brandi Web (Lynn
Whitfield), who seems to be completely resistant to his hitherto
unassailable charms. But she does come back to Chocolate City, and
regally flirts with the now lust-filled Darnell. He makes a bet with
his best friend, Tee (Bobby Brown), that he can indeed seduce Brandi
without playing unfair by telling her he loves her.

Brandi, a very wealthy real estate agent with an MBA from Harvard, is
gradually revealed as an unstable obsessive who murdered her husband
when she found him unfaithful. This only causes Darnell momentary
hesitation, and he continues with -- and succeeds in -- his plan.

Then things go very wrong, of course, since this is a FATAL ATTRACTION
wanna-be. In another SUNSET BLVD. touch, Darnell allows Brandi to buy
him expensive clothes and provide him a limo. But he's now falling for
Mia; true love has caught up with Darnell at last. However, the script
(by Kim Bass, Kenny Buford, Bentley Kyle Evans and Lawrence) has
Darnell promising the unstable Brandi he'll come to her home for her
birthday, then skipping out to sleep with Mia. (Evidently leaving the
limo driver cooling his heels all night at the curb out front.) We're
supposed to regard this as proof that he's in love with Mia, but to
abandon the desperately lonely Brandi comes across as cold, mean
opportunism. He's just as cold to her when they next meet, but clearly
the intention is for us to find him justified in this behavior.

Brandi becomes completely unhinged, and begins a campaign of terror
directed at Darnell and those around him. But very little of it is
credible; the comic tone of the movie strongly suggests that nothing
really bad is going to happen to anyone, which of course wipes out the
potential for suspense. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that a brilliant
real estate agent would fall apart emotionally so readily.

Lawrence's performance is mannered and self-indulgent; he can't seem to
deliver a line without playing with it -- hesitations, dropped words,
tricks with emphasis. His sexual exploits are supposed to be randy,
good-natured fun, but because Lawrence lacks on-screen warmth and
charm, at least in this movie, instead he seems like a predator. And
when he condescendingly confronts his younger sister's prom date, he
comes across as a hypocrite. That may have actually been the intention
of the scene, but it's just another element that makes it very hard to
give a damn about what happens to Darnell.

The movie itself is similar to Lawrence's performance: it's stuffed
with scenes that don't tie in with the story, or much of anything else.
There's a lengthy sequence in which strippers are auditioned for
Chocolate City that should have been dropped for irrelevance, but it's
hardly the only such scene.

Lynn Whitfield and Regina King give good performances despite the fact
that their roles are confusingly written. Roger E. Mosley is mostly
wasted in the throwaway role of the nightclub manager; he's only around
to offer Darnell obvious advice. Bobby Brown's role might as well have
been played by Lawrence, since Tee and Darnell are essentially
identical.

The DVD itself is a standard package, improved by the narrative track
by George Jackson, who sounds as though the making of the film was a
good deal of fun. But very little of that fun is conveyed in the movie.